Gone....

Another good report from one of our good friends, Jocelyn Blériot - Course Au Large. Enjoy.

Thomas Coville, skipper of the Sodebo 60' trimaran, left Cadiz in Spain yesterday, in an attempt to beat Francis Joyon's reference time of the Discovery Route… the E to W Transatlantic passage named after Colombus's inaugural journey of 1492.
The finish line is set in San Salvador (Bahamas), and Thomas must cross it before July 9, 13:57' in order to beat Joyon, who claims the record on this course with 11 days, 3 jours, 17 minutes and 20 seconds.
Now a bit about the boats : Thomas is sailing a very neat VPLP 60ter (with the "classic" curved foils + canting mast combo), whilst Joyon set out on his old IDEC (VPLP designed as well), originally launched for Olivier de Kersauson in 1986. Now, see where the two guys meet… When Francis took the helm of his giant trimaran, she was still in her 1997 winning Jules Verne configuration, and that has scarcely evolved since. But guess who was part of the 1997 winning crew ? Well, a certain Thomas Coville - good stuff for the anecdote lovers out there, ain't it ?

But Coville was not the only one to leave the Spanish harbour yesterday, since another strange bird stretched its wings, heading for the same destination. The amazing foiler Hydroptere, initially dreamt of by Eric Tabarly, crossed the starting line just 19 minutes after the Sodebo trimaran ! This time, Alain Thébault and his team mates are giving a go at the Discovery Route crewed record, held by Steve Fossett aboard PlayStation (9 days 13 hours 31 mins 18 secs)… The "boat" herself is quite a machine, with her massive carbon foils allowing her to fly over the surface of the water. Recently the main issue has been to cope with the choppy and rough sea states, obviously inducing huge efforts, but the Hydroptere succesfully crossed the English Channel at 33,3 knots of average speed (yes, average) with a peak at 39,8 kts. A nice performance on the Discovery Route would be a major milestone for the project, which has been a technological challenge over the past few years.

Today, Thomas Coville was virtually 15 miles behind Joyon… In the meantime, for the first 24 hours at sea, the Hydroptere has covered 443 miles (18,45 kts avg). Cool stuff indeed ! Picture by the great Gilles Martin-Raget.

6/30/05

Update
7/1/05

Just to let you know that the Hydroptere crashed into an Unidentified Floating Object yesterday night. The port foil is damaged, they called it quits for this attempt and headed towards Lanzarote (Canary Islands).

Meanwhile, Thomas is hauling ass, I spoke to him this morning, he was coming out of a difficult night (4 gybes in 25 to 30 knots of wind, gotta be extra careful not to break any battens on such a machine when sailing solo). He's clearly in the trades now, going a steady 20 knots… Looks like a tropical low is building up and may complicate things for him at the end of the course… but that's a bit early to tell.

As for big guy Joyon… Well, he crossed the W to E Atlantic record starting line this morning off Ambrose Light at 8:42'26'' GMT, heading towards the Lizard (Cornwall - UK). He's going after Laurent Bourgnon's solo record (7 days and 2 hours), established in 1994 aboard Primagaz (VPLP designed, once again). Jocelyn Blériot.